


Solemn

by QuillFeathers



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Childhood Friends, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Blue Lions Route, Fluff, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Promises, pre to post-game, wedding vows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:02:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26706430
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuillFeathers/pseuds/QuillFeathers
Summary: “...when this war is over I'm going to stop home just to make sure they know I’m alive, and then I’m riding back to Fraldarius fast as I can just to collapse onto your bed no matter what time of day it is...”“Sylvain,” Felix repeats, lifting himself up enough to press their lips together. Definitely just to shut him up. “I'll change my mind if you're clingy.”That earns him an unnecessarily sloppy kiss to his forehead, which earns Sylvain a hand shoved in his face, “Is that a yes to staying?” muffled while Felix squirms until they are laying back to chest. Settled.He's not sure if Sylvain means this night or after, but the answer is the same either way.Years of assurances and one lifelong promise. Not that Felix thinks much of such things...action over words, right?(written for Blue Love: a sylvix fanzine)
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 66





	Solemn

**Author's Note:**

> It's crazy to think I first drafted this close to a year ago. Vows as scene breaks seemed like a good way to link that classic sylvix proposal-like childhood promise across the timeline of fe3h. I still think the short snapshot scenes were a fun format for the zine, too. If you purchased a copy of Blue Love I hope you love it, and thank you for supporting the project! And as always, thank you for reading. :)

_~ As long as we both shall live. ~_ **  
** *****

Six-year-old Felix holds Sylvain's gaze while their fathers greet each other, vision bleary with unshed tears held in check only because Glenn had told him not to cry in front of Margrave Gautier.

“Your men are to be commended. We were hardly a quarter of the way here when the message that he'd been found intercepted us,” his father says.

Felix sniffles quietly, thinking of Sylvain lost all alone in the cold dark of the mountains. Glenn had mentioned that he'd overheard the second messenger saying that rumour was Miklan had left him there. Left him! But Felix wasn't supposed to know that bit, and that had been yesterday. After receiving the news that Sylvain had been found freezing cold but quite alive, the Fraldarius search party had made camp and finished the trek into Gautier territory today instead.

And today, Sylvain _looks_ physically fine, standing next to his father, but there's a tired and sad look on his face that Felix doesn't like.

“...only hours. But much colder, had he not known the right direction...” the Margrave continues.

Formalities long completed, the two adults finally begin to walk off to whatever room they were going to talk in. Glenn ruffles Sylvain's hair before following, and seconds later Sylvain has his arms full of a crying Felix.

“I'm okay. I'm okay,” Sylvain tries to laugh, sinking them both slowly to the floor, but his voice sounds all funny and he clings to Felix just as tight as he is clung to.

It makes Felix's heart hurt. He buries his face into the thick fur collar of the redhead's coat, brittle voice muffled. “You could have died!”

“No way,” Sylvain presses into his hair.

Felix lifts his head up enough to breathe properly, visions and terrible possibilities whirling in his head. “What if wolves found you? Or a bear? What if you got lost and we...we never saw each other again!”

“Didn't you hear? I started walking home myself!”

Felix pushes himself away, glaring at Sylvain from arms’ length. “Miklan is mean!” he yells, not caring who could hear. “Don't go with him places! Me and you! We have to stick together, Sylvain. No dying.”

Sylvain is the one that sniffles this time, wiping his nose on his sleeve before pulling Felix up so they are standing again. “We can't be together _all_ the time, and everything dies eventually.”

“You can’t, not without me,” Felix stubbornly tugs on his hand, more tears threatening. “So I'll know I can see you again.”

Sylvain frowns, tugging right back. “That's not fair. I don't want you to die either.”

“Together then. We'll die together too. Promise.”

“Okay, Felix. It's a promise.”

 _~ In good times and in bad. ~_ **  
** *****

Two weeks after Sylvain is given the Lance of Ruin Felix finds him training alone, not with a lance...but with magic.

“Magic again?” he asks as another dummy is set aflame.

Sylvain spins around, hands oddly clasped behind his back. “The professor is impressed with how I've progressed! But I'm about tuckered out, so you can have the place to yourself.”

“Spar with me,” Felix orders, grabbing a practice lance from the rack along the wall as Sylvain shakes his head. Felix tosses the weapon anyway, something he does almost every time they train together, but for the first time in a long while the cavalier drops it with a pained hiss, shaking both his hands as if burned. Felix strides forward to wrench the right one forward. The skin on his palm is indeed an angry red, a stripe of purple-blue arching along the outside of the pointer finger. “Are you some kind of masochist now?” Felix snarls, snatching the other hand up for good measure. It's not much better off.

“Hah, ouch,” Sylvain puffs, caught between a humourless laugh and a faltering smile. The one that he wears like a shield despite being well aware that Felix knows it’s fake. “I just haven't been in the mood to swing a lance around.”

Felix waits for the story to be further embellished, but it doesn’t come, and his annoyance evaporates a bit with the admittance. Miklan has managed to hurt his little brother one last time, even in death. Pushed him down one last hill, leaving him to tumble over rocks and sharp branches towards another well.

“You don't have to swing _that_ lance around all the time,” Felix says with a glare, squeezing Sylvain’s wrists slightly. “Are you going to take the mage certification exam? How do you plan on surviving our next mission if you can't hold your weapon?”

“Aw, Felix!” Sylvain leans forward conspiratorially, hands twisting to grip Felix’s even though it must hurt. “You're so sweet, worrying about me.”

Their hands drop apart. The forgotten practice lance clatters between them when Felix catches it with the toe of his boot in his haste to step back, and he kicks it to the side with displaced anger. “You're such a pain! One minute skipping training all the time”—he waves at where Sylvain has already clasped his hands behind his back again—“and this the next. Just…go see a healer.”

The next grin that ignites is one of poor appeasement, but also less fabricated. “If I promise to see a healer, will you hang out with me tomorrow?”

Felix crosses his arms. “Would that involve girls?”

“Well, since you suggested it,” Sylvain winks, “but I promise to see a healer.”

Felix doesn't put much confidence in promises. They're too similar to obligations which are too close to oaths, and oaths are more often broken than kept. Conditional fantasies.

Actions speak louder than words, so he follows Sylvain to Mercedes, just to make sure. Then the next day he finds Sylvain before their lessons, only kicking him once when he teases Felix for ‘being surprisingly empathetic’.

Sylvain surprises him in turn. He doesn't go out looking for girls. He spars with Felix instead.

 _~ I choose you to be no other than yourself. ~_ **  
** *****

In the wake of war, five years both pass in the blink of an eye and drag as slowly as melting candle-wax. Suddenly they are back at Gronder Field, dotted once again in red and yellow and blue. Felix is standing by Sylvain's horse with a hand on her neck, stalling in his return to the front lines.

“Encouraging Ivy over me?” Sylvain complains, appearing over the little crest of the hill they're on.

Felix leans back slightly, nodding pointedly at the extra lance that Sylvain has in his hand as if he had just thought to grab it from his squire. “I have to rely on her to help keep you alive, since you're so terrible at managing it yourself.”

On cue, the horse shifts slightly, turning her head over Felix's shoulder to blow out a puff of air in greeting. Her paladin steps in excessively close to rub at her ear. “I distinctly remember telling you recently that I am in fact not trying to die on you,” he says to her, or rather to Felix.

Felix remembers. Sylvain has been trying to hug him for weeks now, looking for any excuse to bring up the moment of...vulnerability, after Sylvain had gotten himself injured—however minor. It's unfair. They have rarely started a battle positioned side-by-side and yet somehow it had been Sylvain throwing himself in front of Felix when it clearly should have been the other way around, or preferably never.

“Here's your next chance to prove it,” Felix challenges, gaze focused across the field and their next brush with death. “Don't die.”

Sylvain nudges Ivy's head away, leaving Felix trapped between his armoured bulk and her shoulder. “Not unless _you_ plan on it. I know...” He trails off when their eyes meet, glinting bronze to flickering copper. The bravado drops to genuine worry, a frown and a hand half-raised to reach out. “I know you'll be keeping pace with Dimitri, but don't...you're not allowed to die either. Don't forget.”

As always, Felix breaks eye contact first. War is cruel and unpredictable. Neither of them are foolish enough to believe that something like fate or promises is what keeps the trend of them _not_ fighting side-by-side going. As if the Goddess really was dictating that they will _only_ die next to each other.

“It's a promise,” Felix says aloud.

“I feel like now would be a good time for that hug,” Sylvain muses.

The sound of a horn splits the air.

The world shifts around them, but it's only the nearby soldiers adjusting in anticipation, the order to march impending. Sylvain's expression changes again along with it, this time to something that cannot be anything but fond, and he still doesn't move. Felix grimaces, his own feet shifting as he fights the pull to make eye contact again in the wake of Sylvain’s patience. He probably will just keep him here now until—

Red shifts into his field of vision as Sylvain ducks his head, “It's a good thing that I love your stubbornness,” sighed so close to Felix’s ear that he can feel Sylvain’s breath. Heat flares instantly to his face and he starts to turn, to chase him; but then there's a brush of metal at his cheek, a brief press of lips to his temple that freezes his whole being, and then Sylvain is swinging astride his mount—“What?” he gleefully laughs behind a smile that is much too honest in a voice much too earnest, “You must know that I love you by now!”—and then he's riding towards the centre of his command, robbing Felix of any chance to say anything back over the din of hooves and feet and his heart restarting with a clamour.

The sound of a horn splits the air a second time.

Love must be another form of battle madness.

It's a good thing Sylvain manages to not get himself killed, because Felix is so furious at him that the Goddess herself wouldn't have been able to stop him from finding him after the battle, wherever he was, to finally give him that hug. And a proper kiss.

 _~ That each kiss from now will be a remembrance of our joy. ~_ **  
** *****

He does shed tears for his father, though not where anyone can see him, and as they march to more victories inevitability is a heavy cloud. Responsibility. Mortality. Shadows that loom as much as the shadow of Enbarr as they approach. Threats clutching tighter right along with Sylvain's hands on his skin.

Light flashes behind Felix's closed eyelids. He bolts upright, tense, willing the world into focus which is rather difficult in the dark. They're less than two days' march from the Empire's capital.

A shadow shifts to his right, “Just a storm rolling in,” accompanied by a light touch that makes him startle, but it’s only Sylvain’s fingers walking up his bare arm. “You dozed off.”

The world narrows from danger to contemporary. Rain patters against the fabric of the tent. Thunder rumbles in the distance.

Felix groans, pushing hair back from his face. “I should get back.”

Not that they haven’t shared a tent plenty of times, but he was head of his house now. He should be in his own encampment.

Sylvain reaches up to tuck a lock of indigo that refuses to cooperate behind Felix’s ear. “If your tent is found empty anyone with half a brain will come here second.”

Felix glowers down at him, not that he’s wrong. He’s certain Sylvain is looking forward to the day he could confirm all the rumours of _them_ to his father, and all their old classmates had them figured out before they retook Fhirdiad.

“I don't feel like walking in the rain,” Felix mock-ponders, which apparently isn't a good enough answer because he's tugged awkwardly down and sideways, an arm coming up to trap him close.

“You know, I really, _really_ like waking up next to you.” Sylvain's heart beats in his ear. “I dream about waking up next to you when we're not hours away from death's doorstep, in a bed that's actually made for two people, somewhere that's not a tent or the academy...”

“Sylvain.”

“...when this war is over I'm going to stop home just to make sure they know I’m alive, and then I’m riding back to Fraldarius fast as I can just to collapse onto your bed no matter what time of day it is...”

“ _Sylvain_ ,” Felix repeats, lifting himself up enough to press their lips together. Definitely just to shut him up. “I'll change my mind if you're clingy.”

That earns him an unnecessarily sloppy kiss to his forehead, which earns Sylvain a hand shoved in his face, “Is that a yes to staying?” muffled while Felix squirms until they are laying back to chest. Settled.

He's not sure if Sylvain means this night or after, but the answer is the same either way.

 _~ I shall share my life with you. ~_ **  
** *****

Dimitri's coronation is an all-day affair, the ceremonies doubled in length to accommodate for Byleth's appointment to archbishop as well. When all the formalities are finally over; the fealties sworn and the applause for Dimitri's final toast dwindling, the new king rises to ask the new head of the church to partnership in opening the dance floor, and Felix escapes to the edge of the room.

“I've never disliked layered clothing as much as I do right now,” he grumbles, pulling at the outermost cuffs on his jacket.

Sylvain winks, offering him a fresh flute of champagne. “I'll be sure to help you with that later, Duke Fraldarius.”

Felix elbows him in the ribs, hiding his flush behind the drink. Sylvain looks stunning all in black, little silver details bright against his typical red trim. His gaze had lingered way too often while stuck at Dimitri's side through the afternoon. With the crowd’s attention on the dance floor at the moment though, he looks a little bit longer.

“What?” Sylvain finally caves, feet shifting with an upward tilt to his lips.

Felix looks away with a smirk. “Nothing.”

Sylvain follows his gaze back out to the centre of the room, where so far Dimitri and Byleth have managed to not step on each other’s feet. “We should keep them dancing so they don't get stuck in too many work-related discussions tonight.”

If Felix's snort of amusement were any louder they surely would have earned disapproving glances. “They would rather be stuck in discussions.”

“They'll have no shortage of disputes to deal with, with the ideas they have.”

“Good thing there's plenty of fools that will support them.”

“Yeah, good thing we will.” Sylvain drains the rest of his glass and glances sideways. “I'll be Margrave soon...” and here Felix can so easily imagine him placing his hands behind his head, walking a line of nonchalant and searching. “We should combine our lands. You know, to make my life easier.”

Felix hums, careful to keep his eyes forward. “That's not the worst idea you've ever had, but I have an awful lot of responsibility and obligations to uphold. I'd have to think about it.”

Meanwhile, the music of the first song fades out to applause. Dimitri bows to Byleth as more revellers step forward to join the next dance, but Felix's view is obstructed by Sylvain leaning over with a huge, stupidly-endearing grin on his face. “Better be sure about your answer then, Fraldarius. I'll make you swear to it.”

The impulse to reach into his pocket right then and there is almost too hard to resist, but there's no way that Felix is going to propose in front of the whole damn court.

Hours later though—when the party has dwindled to just a quiet balcony and their closest friends; when it’s just first names, without titles, spoken into the air—and the ring in Felix's hand—he assures Sylvain that combining their lands—the rest of their lives—is something he rather loves the idea of.

 _~ This is my solemn promise. ~_ **  
** *****


End file.
